Plugin: CommercialDetector

[tmiranda]

I downloaded ShowAnalyzer and AVG says it's infected. I let the install go anyway and received all sorts of errors. Tried to uninstall it and received a fatal error. Clicked on the link to receive a "free" key and the link is dead.

Here is the forum link I followed: http://www.dragonglobal.biz/forums/s...tart-here.html

What gives?

[tmiranda]

I found a bug in 0.30 that will cause it to fail if you are running linux and are not running Sage as root. Windows is not effected by this bug. It will be fixed in the next beta.

[toricred]

That link in the SA forum is for a really old version of the product. Which version did you download? There are frequently problems with false positives from anti-virus softwares. In general they can cause problems during the install and it works best to either "trust" SARegProxy.exe or turn the AV off while installing and turn it back on afterwards.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

3dOptics - I could probably do that. No promises at this point.

sscumming - Yes, any of the older solutions will still work.

freewheeling - comskip.exe is in the comskip folder in the Sage install directory as you surmised. If you are not seeing any .edl files something is not working properly. Can you post a zipped logfile? Are you running on an extender, placeshifter or SageClient?

Which log file? I'm running on an HD200 usually, but I sometimes do the setup directly on the computer.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by toricred

That link in the SA forum is for a really old version of the product. Which version did you download? There are frequently problems with false positives from anti-virus softwares. In general they can cause problems during the install and it works best to either "trust" SARegProxy.exe or turn the AV off while installing and turn it back on afterwards.

I downloaded what I thought was the latest version and I did let the install complete. I still can't get the program to launch and I can't even uninstall it.

freewheeling - You should install on the HD200 or on a placeshifter. Do not install on a SageClient. If you install on a client it will not work for a variety of reasons.

Turn on debug logging in Sage, set the debug log level in the plugin to Trace and then attach the sagetv_0.txt file located in the Sage install directory. Make sure you let Sage run long enough to complete a recording or two before you send the logfile. (You will need to ZIP the .txt file.)

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I found a bug in 0.30 that will cause it to fail if you are running linux and are not running Sage as root. Windows is not effected by this bug. It will be fixed in the next beta.

Let me know if you need a tester. I wasn't able to get the last one to work, but thought it was my setup and didn't have time to troubleshoot.

B

[Sl33man]

Wow I've been trying to get this setup for sometime now without success.

My Setup is Box running WHS, with Sage TV installed on the C: Everything else is working marvelously, and the comskip
is the cherry on the sunday if I can get it done.
My capture device is a Hauppauge HD-PVR

So from what I understood the plugins necessary are
Commercial Detector 0.30 Beta
Commercial Detector UI 1.00
Comskip Playback 2.0.5.1

All have been installed as a Client plugin.

I have recently donated to comskip giving me access to the beta files, I believe these files are mandatory for the HD-PVR .ts
files.

On my client machine I've added the donate version of my comskip files in it's own folder in c:\program files\SageTV\SateTV\Comskip80_31
I have the buttons in SageTV to select a recording and run comskip, or select a folder and comskip all, but nothing happens
I haven't modified the .ini file in any way.

My questions are:
Is Comskip supposed to be functional out of the box, or are .ini modifications necessary?
Isn't something supposed to be installed server side? I'm assuming this is where my bobo is.
Any other things I need to be looking at and likely missed.

Also from a SageTV and Comskip noob perspective I think it would be usefull to produce a step by step guide,
Something that would include expected results, like what should appear where on the server and client. Which
steps should be taken in which order. Yes I know the majority of folks don't require this, but as more and more
mainstream non technical users come on board it would definately cut down on the number of questions you need to answer
and decrease the fear factor some have with all things tech.

Thanks for answering a Sage / Comskip noob.

Wade

[mechling-burgh]

I was thinking but I don't know how hard this would be to add. You know how you list for stations not to run comskip on. How hard would it be to add a favorite option to run Comskip on this show. Lets say you are like me where you have over 50 favorites but only want to run comskip on certain shows. It would be nice to be able to have a check box in favorites to say run comskip on this show after recording. This way it wouldn't do all shows just certain favorites.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Sl33man

My questions are:
Is Comskip supposed to be functional out of the box, or are .ini modifications necessary?
Isn't something supposed to be installed server side? I'm assuming this is where my bobo is.
Any other things I need to be looking at and likely missed.

Wade,

It should be installed as a server plugin, it will not work if installed as a client plugin. Uninstall the client plugin and reinstall as a server plugin.

It should all be functional out of the box. In your case since you have the donators version of comskip you need to go to the configuration and edit the comskip.exe and comskip.ini location to point to your comskip80_31 directory. The ini in that directory should work fine but you may want to set verbose=0 and output_default=0 to suppress the .log files and .txt files. If you do not make those changes to the .ini add .log and .txt to the list of files to delete.

Good idea for a step-by-step guide for beginners. I'll start working on that.

You can see if it's working or not be browsing the directory (or directories) with your Sage recordings. If you see .edl files being produced, it's working. The next beta I am working on will display an icon in the menu header when comskip is running so you will have some visual feedback.

@mechling-burgh - I'm not sure how easy or difficult that will be but I will look into it.

@bcjenkins - I'll email you a test .jar. Thanks!

[Sl33man]

Thank you for the quick reply, I'll try it again when I get home. I thought it was giving me some sort of error when I was trying to install as a server plugin, but I might be confusing it with another addin. I'll report back either way.

Thanks Wade

[Sl33man]

OK so I had to install the Commercial Detector UI from the Server and not the client. It was giving me errors.

Now that It's installed I see the following.

From the server gui.
Commercial Detector 0.30 enabled
Commercial Detector UI 1.00 enabled
Comskip Playback 2.0.5.1 enabled

Now from my Windows 7 Client machine I went into plugins and went to installed Server Plugins and see the following

Commercial Detector 030 enabled
Commercial Detector UI 1.00 Disabled
Comskip Playback 2.0.5.1 enabled

I'm wondering why the Commercial Detector UI 1.00 on the client box is disabled, and is it supposed to be this way. When I click on it and click "enable" it gives me the following error:

Plugin cannot be enabled. A required dependency may be missing or the plugin is broken. Try removing and reinstalling the plugin.

Now I did try reinstalling, but the same occurs.

As far as recordings go, I tried selecting a few recordings I had and clicked on "run comskip" but upon reviewing my recordings folder I don't get any edl files.

A side note, I did point the config file to my contributer version of comskip.exe and ini

Thanks for the help.

Wade

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I downloaded what I thought was the latest version and I did let the install complete. I still can't get the program to launch and I can't even uninstall it.

freewheeling - You should install on the HD200 or on a placeshifter. Do not install on a SageClient. If you install on a client it will not work for a variety of reasons.

Turn on debug logging in Sage, set the debug log level in the plugin to Trace and then attach the sagetv_0.txt file located in the Sage install directory. Make sure you let Sage run long enough to complete a recording or two before you send the logfile. (You will need to ZIP the .txt file.)

In this case I installed it on the HD200 extender, and I don't really have any "full clients" running. I've attached the log file (relabelled sagetv_0(2).txt because there was already one in the folder I saved it to).

[tmiranda]

Wade,

The problem is that is will not work from a SageClient. You MUST install it on the server, or a UI that runs in the server Java Virtual Machine (i.e. an extender, a placeshifter or the UI running on the server machine.)

I am working on making it more SageClient friendly, but for now it's a no-go.

The Comskip Playback plugin has a similar restriction, it will not display any comskip information on a SageClient unless you are using UNC paths in your recordings. If you are using absolute paths ("E:\MyRecordings") on your server the client can't access files on E: because the path (E does not exist on the client, only on the server. The way to get around this is to define UNC paths to your recordings ("\\MyServer\MyRecordings") and then use those import paths as recording directories on the server. That way both the server and a SageClient can access \\MyServer\MyRecordings.

Now I understand your confusion and it's my fault for not explaining more clearly. (And another good reason for me to write a short manual.) Here is what you need to do:

- Cleanup your SageClient by uninstalling the CommercialDetector "General" plugin AND the CommercialDetector "UI Mod" plugin.
- Go to a sage UI on the server. (i.e. placeshifter, extender or simply the UI that appears on your server when you launch SageTV.)
- From that UI install the CommercialDetector UI Mod. That will install everything you need on the server and all new recordings should get comskip information.
- If needed, install your donators version of comskip on the server. (Not the client.)
- Configure the plugin to your liking. (Still on the server, not the client.) This includes pointing it at the right comskip and .ini.
- If you want to manually run comskip, do it from the server.

If you are using UNC paths in your recordings install ONLY the Comskip Playback plugin on your SageClient. If you are not using UNC paths don't bother installing the Comskip Playback plugin on your client because it won't work.

My apologies for not being clearer. I guess my one line saying to not install as a Client Plugin is sorely lacking detail.

Tom

[Sl33man]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the great feedback. Indeed my Sage Record TV directory was NOT using UNC, however this has now been corrected. I've taken your advice and updated all my server directories to use UNC paths.

As advised I installed the the Commercial Detector UI from the server UI.
and installed the the Comskip Playback ONLY on the client box.

once note I wanted to bring back up from the client box, when I review which plugins have been installed on the server the Commercial Detector UI appears different. What I mean by this is when I look at this plugin from the Server box it appears as enabled, but when I look at it from the client box it is disabled, is this normal?

I'll try recording a show or 2 with the new settings and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again,

Wade

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Sl33man

once note I wanted to bring back up from the client box, when I review which plugins have been installed on the server the Commercial Detector UI appears different. What I mean by this is when I look at this plugin from the Server box it appears as enabled, but when I look at it from the client box it is disabled, is this normal?

Wade,

I think that is normal because I've seen strange things like that as well.

It sounds like you now have things installed correctly. Please let me know how it goes.

Be aware that just because you changed to UNC paths, comskip info for the existing recordings may still not be "seen" by the plugin on the client. The reason being that in the Sage database (wiz.bin) the file path will not be updated until Sage can no longer see the absolute path. So if your recordings are on E:\Something and you have a UNC path defined \\Server\Something, the wiz.bin will NOT be updated with \\Server\Something until Sage can no longer access E:\Something. All new recordings should be seen.

Tom

[Sl33man]

OK so now we're really making some progress here. So based on forum posts at the Comskip website I downloaded the following paid versions 80_27 which sounded to be the last known version to work with the HD-PVR's and 80_31.

Last evening up until around 9pm I started with 80_27 and had 2 shows successfully handled by Comskip. The playback turned out to be buggy however as Sage was consistently crashing on my following some commercial skips.

Next I pointed the config file to 80_31, I saved this one for the 2nd try as there were comments on the Comskip forum that this version was not working with HD-PVR, and the show that I recorded last night confirms this. No commercials were edited out. I'm assuming that this is a known issue and future releases will address it.

Question for you, was the SageTV crashing I experienced in 80_27 consistent with others testing it at the time?

Thanks,

Wade


*** Update ** I tried another recording with 80_27, recorded CNN, and worked great. Didn't crash the system, so perhaps it was a coincident or the channel I was recording.

[tmiranda]

What do you mean when you say Sage was crashing following commercial skipping? UI freeze? service stopped? I've never seen anything approaching that. About the worst I've seen in my development and testing is that the plugin stops functioning.

Tom

[freewheeling]

I'm not crashing, it just isn't skipping commercials. According to the log it starts a run by assuming that the .edl file is there, and tries to delete it but can't. It also returns an error code 3, but I don't know what that is. All the plugin software has been installed and it looks like comskip.exe is where it's supposed to be, so I'm not sure what to do next. Should I try to delete the plugins and reinstall them?

[Sl33man]

Last evening when the commercial skipped, SageTV would close and a popup windows popup appears saying SageTV stopped working unexpectedly. I get the feeling the reason might have been the video codec I was using as this morning I didn't experience the same with new recordings.

The codec I was using was CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD7)

I was using this codec for both MPEG2 video Decoder Filter and H.264 Video Decoder Filter.

Since then I've reverted back to ArcSoft Video Decoder for both and seems to be working better.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by freewheeling

I'm not crashing, it just isn't skipping commercials. According to the log it starts a run by assuming that the .edl file is there, and tries to delete it but can't. It also returns an error code 3, but I don't know what that is. All the plugin software has been installed and it looks like comskip.exe is where it's supposed to be, so I'm not sure what to do next. Should I try to delete the plugins and reinstall them?

Attach a logfile for me to look at please. Set the debug level in the plugin to Trace.

If comskip finds commercials it returns a 1, if it fails to find commercials it returns a 0. Anything other than a 0 or 1 indicates an error. I've never seen a 3 so I'd lik to see a log to figure out what is happening.